GOP Flips Off Women And Minorities, Strike ‘Civil Rights And Human Rights’ From Subcommittee Title

If Republicans were trying to improve their image among minorities and women, they failed miserably by proclaiming that they don’t give a damn about civil and human rights.

In what appears to be a giant middle finger in the faces of minorities and women, the “not racist” and “not sexist” Senate Republicans renamed a key subcommittee by striking “civil rights and human rights” from the title.

GOP Senator Chuck Grassley just took over as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he wasted no time in making it clear that the plight of minorities and women mean nothing to the Republican Party. Grassley named Texas Senator John Cornyn the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. And Cornyn’s first order of business as committee chairman resulted in changing the name of the committee to the Subcommittee on the Constitution.

According to Cornyn’s spokeswoman Megan Mitchell,

“We changed the name because the Constitution covers our most basic rights including civil and human rights. We will focus on these rights along with other issues that fall under the broader umbrella of the Constitution.”

The name change is a slap in the face of civil and human rights leaders who have relentlessly fought to improve the lives of those who have been denied their basic constitutional rights by those who proclaim to follow it.

The committee name-change comes as Republicans take control of the Senate during a pivotal moment in which much of the country remains locked in emotional conversations about race, policing, and civil rights following the high-profile police killings of several unarmed black men last year.

In addition, the change comes at a time when women are continuing to fight for equal pay and are fighting to keep their reproductive rights intact. Furthermore, this change comes a year and a half after the conservative wing of the Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act, thus allowing Republicans in states across the country to potentially strip millions of women and minorities of their right to vote. It also comes as immigration reform continues to remain one of the biggest human rights issues in this country.

This gesture speaks volumes about what Republicans on the committee intend to focus on over the next few years as Republicans use their grip on power to appease their racist and sexist conservative base. Republicans have made it very clear over the last six years that they have zero compassion for women and minorities and that they would love nothing more than to erase the Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation movements from the history books. The GOP has consistently ignored the parts of the Constitution they do not agree with and have acted like the Constitution is a document that only applies to conservative Christian white men. So their claim that the committee will continue to focus on civil and human rights as a constitutional issue for all is laughable.

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